Monthly Archives: November 2008

A larger version can be viewed here. From the looks of it, one storyline this season will deal with the discovery of a Banana Republic on the island, and judging from the background, the Frankfurt financial district… nevermind. I’m sorry.

First up, the teaser for Marcus Nispel’s remake of Friday the 13th, due out next year. Nispel’s taking the franchise in a bold new direction. Instead of the same old, monolithic killer who staggers out of the woods and kills unsuspecting camp–oh… wait…

Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler will be released on December 17th. You have to give Aronofsky props. With Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and now The Wrestler, he’s not afraid to take his movies in radically different directions. You also have to give props to Mickey Rourke. With every movie he makes, he takes his face in only one direction: ugly. Seriously, he looks like something my grandpa whittled.

Now, this next one is a delight. Next year, FOX Searchlight is releasing a film documenting the life of a famous East Coast rapper who was gunned-down in the prime of his life. Who? If you guessed Grand Master Theodore, you’re wrong, because he’s still alive, and not a rapper. The correct answer is The Notorious B.I.G. What really excites me about Notorious is how incredibly awful it’s going to be, or perhaps notoriously awful? HI-YO!

James Bond is back! And this time, he’s walking through the desert in a suit. Aroused? You bet we are!

Quantum of Solace, or as I call it, QoS (I really don’t), picks up an hour after Casino Royale left off. Bond’s got Mr. White locked in the trunk, or boot, as the Brits say, of his car. Uponst interrogation, White reveals that his organization, Quantum, which was responsible for blackmailing Vesper Lynd in the last movie, has people everywhere and is much more dangerous than anyone had imagined. He’s proven right a moment later when one of M’s personal bodyguards attacks both M and Bond, as White makes his escape. Intelligence on the agent takes Bond to Haiti, and puts him on the trail of a ruthless businessman and one of Quantum’s major players.

I’ll admit that, aside from these last two, I’ve only seen four or five Bond flicks, and while it’s possible that I’m horribly unqualified to pass judgment, I feel completely confident in saying that Daniel Craig is the BEST. BOND. EVAR. Seriously. See you later George Lazenby. Take a hike Pierce Brosnan. Craig’s work so far has been fantastic. He’s brash and arrogant, and at the same time substantive and, you know, believable. It also hasn’t hurt that the filmmakers turned the character into a British Jason Bourne. So, I ❤ Daniel Craig. Of course, he’s only as good as his costars (or is he?). Olga Kurylenko doesn’t light my fire like Eva Greene, but she and Craig have a lot of chemistry and work very well together. Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini and Mathieu Amalric round out an impressive cast.

In spite of all this, Quantum didn’t quite live up to its predecessor. I felt like there was a big chunk of this movie that was moving back toward that sort-of-ridiculous, over the top James Bond we had come to expect before Royale was released. This wasn’t because Bond was driving around in a rocket-powered Audi that could travel through time, but because this movie had more than its fair share of crazy car chases, fight scenes and snarky Bond rejoinders, all at the cost of story and plot.

What I really liked about Casino Royale was that it felt like they were taking James Bond, who had really turned into a caricature of himself, and were turning him into a real, fleshed out character. There was the British spy who looked good and banged anything that walked on two legs, but we saw that there were reasons for his shameless womanizing and for how closed-off he really was. This movie has a LONG way to go to match the ridiculousness of some of the previous films, but the filmmakers are going to need to be careful and reel it in for the next one (coming in 2011!). If I were them, I’d also be careful not to overload the movie’s plot. After a while, all those names and exotic locales start to blend in to each other.

I’ve heard that Craig is signed up for as many as five films, and I hope he does every single one of them, as he’s probably the best thing to happen to the franchise since Sean Connery. I give this one a solid B+. If you don’t count yourself amongst the Twilight crowd, and I seriously pray that you don’t, get down to the multiplex and check this one out in all its high-definition, dolby digital glory.

Today, Move It Move It turns a year old! Let’s take a look at some of favorite posts over the past year…

… Well, we don’t really have anything prepared, but there are links to stuff somewhere around here. Feel free to check them out. Anyway, it’s been great, and here’s to many many more years to come (or at least a couple of months out of those years where I do that Lost thing again)!

Has anyone ever heard of Twilight? I’ve never read any of the books, but from the commercials I’m seeing, it looks like it’s about a group of monsters who invade a high school and have sex with all the girls. My question is, if the movie’s all about super-sexy vampires and uncontrolled teenage angst, why did they get some of the ugliest people in the world to play the parts? That main guy out in the front, why does his head look like a block of cheese? What’s with Chris Katan on the far right? Kind of creepy, and not very believable. If the filmmakers wanted a real sex-symbol all those ‘tweens would have been beating each other down to see, they should have stuck with Bill Nighy. Take a look…

Now if that doesn’t get you all moist, nothing will. Anyway, Twilight opens this Friday, and has already sold-out something like 2,000 showings. It’s predicted to make about a million-bajillion dollars opening weekend alone. Of course, that number pales in comparison to the amount of money the adaptations of my own vampire novel, Vampire High School, will make when it comes out. Right now, I’m in talks with Bill Nighy to play the role of Edmund Spookmore, the football star who can only play at night *wink*. Stay tuned.

With 90% of the movies that come out these days being either adaptations or remakes, it’s nice to see an original idea once every few years. It’s even better when that idea comes from Guy Ritchie, who’s managed to show us over the years just how funny, not to mention awesome, the British underworld can be.

When a Russian mobster sets up a shady real-estate deal, criminals all over the city come out of the woodwork to get their cut. Whether it’s street-savvy One Two (Butler), London baddy Lenny Cole (Wilkinson), or recently deceased rocker Johnny Quid (Kebbell), everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Rocknrolla is dark, gritty and hilarious. Like most Ritchie films, it features a large cast of characters who, although they don’t know it yet, are all connected in some way. Fans of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch know that nobody does this like Ritchie, and he’s really in full form here. This time, he’s brought in some big names, yet no one character overpowers another. After performances in Batman Begins, Michael Clayton and John Adams, Wilkinson once again proves there’s nothing he can’t do. Gerard Butler is cool, sexy, and makes us all forgive him P.S., I Love You. Ludacris and the always funny Jeremy Piven make nice additions to a well-rounded cast.

Like I said before, Rocknrolla features a lot of players, which translates into a lot to keep track of. For some people (we call them idiots), that can be a bit much, but God bless ’em for trying. For those who enjoy some plot with their car chases and gun fights, the large cast really helps to keep the story moving. Movies like these really hold up to repeat viewings, just because you catch things you may have missed before.

Ritchie has already announced that if this first one is well-received, he intends on making a Rocknrolla trilogy, with The Real Rocknrolla and Rocknroll Suicide coming out sometime in the next 20-30 years. I give this one an A -. It’s probably already met its end in theaters, but make sure to grab the DVD once it streets.

Got a case of the Mondays? Put down that bottle, take a break from a life devoid of pleasure and joy, and watch a few movie trailers.

First up, the just-released trailer for the new Star Trek flick, due out May 8th. Anyone who’s seen anything from Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (The Island, Transformers, Eagle Eye) knows they bring their own… je ne sais quoi, to everything they write. That’s cool. But if a month or two months down the line, commercials start coming out with Kirk driving that Corvette with Nickelback or Linkin Park playing in the background, we should probably start worrying. Hell, I’d wager that if Shia LeBeouf so much as SHOWS UP to the premier, this one is pretty much wrecked.

This next one is the new trailer to Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, which promises to throw a whole mess of steaming-hot awesome in our face.

And just for good measure, we’ve thrown in the trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s epic, Australia. We’re not exactly sure what it’s about, or what kind of name Baz is, but one thing’s for sure, Australia promises to be the biggest adventure movie of the year that audiences won’t give a s**t about. Enjoy!